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To Hash Calf’s Head Brown

A hash made from half‑boiled calf’s head, onions, gravy, truffles, and morels, finished with lemon, ketchup, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Hash Calf’s Head Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hash

  1. Cut the half-boiled calf's head meat into slices, half an inch thick and two to three inches long.

  2. In a pan, brown some butter, flour, and sliced onions.

  3. Add the meat slices, good gravy, truffles, and morels to the pan.

Simmer and season

  1. Bring to a boil, skim well, and simmer on moderate heat until very tender.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne.

  3. Ten minutes before serving, add shredded parsley, a small bit of tarragon, and knotted marjoram.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the juice of a lemon, ketchup, and white wine if desired.

  2. Garnish with forcemeat balls and bits of bacon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Tarragon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Calf's head meat
Provides the main body of the hash, becoming tender during long simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when browned at the start.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and onions.
Good gravy
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth of the sauce.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma to the sauce.
Morels
Add a meaty, earthy flavour and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until very tender. Calf's head meat is tough until its connective tissue breaks down over long, gentle simmering. Boiling hard can toughen and dry the meat, so keep the heat moderate and cook until it is fully tender before finishing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, truffle, pepper, parsley, tarragon, marjoram):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, truffle, pepper, parsley, tarragon, marjoram. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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